Point Guard on Pocket

If you need proof that it’s a point guard’s league, just look at the staggering eight All-Star selections for the position this season. Looking at six different proficiencies, here’s how the best of the best stack up.There has never been a better time in NBA history to be a point guard.

Nate “Tiny” Archibald, the first NBA little man to flourish with unabashed creativity and freedom, spots his modern likeness in a crowded ballroom. Archibald weaves through traffic, same as he used to maneuver past defenseless opponents, to reach Los Angeles Clippers star Chris Paul.

Chris Paul and the Clippers are on the brink of elimination and the future of Lob City is on the line. What is the lasting legacy of this team, and its leader, CP3?“The Clippers are the Wile E. Coyote of basketball. They can’t win. If they win, everything is ruined.

Welcome to King of the Court, our daily celebration of the best performances in basketball from the night that was. We’ll be keeping track of the best player of every night of the NBA season, and tallying the results as we go along.

Introducing The Ringer’s guide to the 2017 NBA draft, one full of lead guards with the potential to shape the future of a franchise and of the leagueThe changing nature of the NBA’s point guard from pure passers to turbo scorers has created the position’s golden era.

Jayson Tatum is ahead of schedule. Young players usually struggle in their first year, but Tatum has fit seamlessly onto the team with the best record in the NBA. He is averaging 13.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 1.

Billups and Bledsoe laugh about the story now, but Odom wasn't joking. Bledsoe was a sullen introvert from Birmingham with a muddled Southern twang; he rarely said anything, and when he did, teammates could not understand him. "You wanna be a point guard?" Billups would ask Bledsoe.

A look at the 14 best prospects in the upcoming draft. This week, the focus is on a young French star rising in international tournament play, Arizona’s sweet-shooting giant, and the Kentucky Wildcats’ human torch.

No one daydreams about standing in the corner to take a spot-up 3. Sports fantasies usually don’t revolve around receiving a pass in the post. But everyone has imagined themselves playing point guard. It’s natural.

The Washington freshman phenom could go first in the upcoming NBA draft. Here’s a look at Fultz’s pros and cons after seeing him live against Arizona.No evaluation of a prospect can be complete without seeing the player in person.

The NBA is teeming with talent from the backcourt to the frontcourt, but even as space and versatility have changed the way we evaluate player roles, there still is no position that captures the fan imagination quite like the point guard.

Kris Dunn is living proof of the power of context. After a horrible rookie season in Minnesota, the no. 5 pick in the 2016 draft looks like a completely different player in Chicago. He is averaging 13.7 points, 6.3 assists, 4.6 rebounds, and 2.0 steals a game on 43.

I've been writing a lot lately about how to improve communication skills, especially if you're in a leadership role. The irony of it all is that it's a skill not enough leaders have. I know this because it still tops the list for clients requesting communication coaching or training.

Not much went right for Dennis Smith Jr. in his one year at NC State. The Wolfpack were projected to finish sixth in the ACC before the start of the season, and they were widely expected to be an NCAA tournament team.

The Kentucky freshman has not shown any semblance of a jumper, and it is keeping him out of the best-overall-prospect discussion. But can it be fixed at the next level? We look at some modern precedents, and talk to a couple of shot doctors for clues.

Uncle Drew visits an underground jazz club in downtown Chicago to convince his old point guard "Lights" to re-live their glory days on the court. As usual, players and spectators at the basketball court were told only that they would be filmed for a "basketball documentary" -- what they really got w

Recently I was watching the Bucks lose to the Cavaliers, and was paying particular attention to the work put in by Bucks guard Malcolm Brogdon (20 points, five assists off the bench). Midway through the fourth, Brogdon drove baseline and found a flashing John Henson.

#TBT: It’s the summer of ’07, just a few months before my senior year at Oak Hill Academy. I’m the No. 1 high school player in the country — and I know it, too, if you know what I mean. I’m 17, doing whatever I want on the court, and no one can tell me nothin’.

A look at the 14 best prospects in the upcoming draft. This week, the focus is on NC State’s explosive point guard, Michigan State’s super-tweener, Duke’s most talented conundrum, and a wild card from Omaha.

Ten years ago, teams would’ve tried to put him in a box. Now, the explosive defender will likely be given a chance to become the best version of himself — a decidedly nontraditional player.Position labels aren’t going anywhere.

Predicting the next Isaiah Thomas or even Malcolm Brogdon may be one of the most difficult things to do in the league, but these five teams may have stumbled onto some extremely valuable pieces to their roster puzzleLooking for talent in the second round of the NBA draft is mostly a fool’s errand

Markelle Fultz’s season is going so poorly that when you watch him, you ask other people if they are also watching him—sort of like when something tastes off, and then you tell someone to taste it too, even though you just made a face that suggests they most certainly should not.

With Lonzo taking top billing for sport’s glamour franchise, LeBron possibly on the way, and stars from virtually every team to be found on the streets and in SoulCycle classes, Los Angeles has become the mecca of the NBA offseason.

The biggest play of Kyle Lowry’s life was doomed from the start. He had led the Toronto Raptors into the closing seconds of Game 7 against the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of last season’s Eastern Conference playoffs. Lowry approached a moment that nearly every player covets.

The NBA has been spinning out of control since the Finals, and we've only now reached the main event: the kickoff of what should be a wild free agency period, even with a flattened cap that squeezed available room around the league.

It was not a good last shot. Scott Brooks knew it. Bradley Beal knew it. John Wall knew it better than anyone. It was a weird game for Wall and the Wizards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Ricky Rubio was once the shiny, new toy. The promising point guard lit our eyes up with his magnetic play in Europe. The mystery of his talent preceded him, much like it does for most players not brought up through the American college system.

After a whirlwind summer (and fall!), it's useful to zoom out, breathe deep and take stock of where everyone stands heading into the new season. Here is our next big preseason tradition: plopping all 30 teams into tiers.

Leave yourself a Post-it: John Wall made the leap Friday night. From good-player-bad-team, from fast-player-no-jump-shot, from great-player-no-shoe-deal — from all of that to one of the best players in the league. His 42-point, 44-minute Game 6 is impressive just to say out loud.

Throughout his 17 years playing in the NBA, Chauncey Billups racked up plenty of accolades. In 2003, he won a championship with the Detroit Pistons and was named Finals MVP. He was selected to five All-Star teams and three All-NBA teams.

Lonzo Ball is making the wrong kind of history. He’s one of two starters in the NBA this season shooting less than 30 percent from the field. He currently has the second-lowest true shooting percentage (35.9) of any rookie since the ABA merger.

The NBA is inching closer to becoming a truly positionless league. Coaches are more comfortable playing nontraditional lineups, cross-switching defensive assignments, and sliding players between positions.

It has been four years since the Pelicans rushed a prefab identity around Anthony Davis by dealing for Jrue Holiday and Tyreke Evans -- the last two "young veterans" in a Finishing Five that would barely play together before disbanding.

The league is in good shape — the best it’s been in a long time. There are still clear-cut elites, but the talent infusion across all teams over the past few years has done wonders for the game’s level of competition.

It could have been a lot worse for Golden State. Steph Curry’s ankles have been his Achilles’ heel his entire career, so the Warriors held their breath when one turned the wrong direction in the final seconds of their win over the Pelicans on Monday.

Is it with the Lakers, or elsewhere? The Ringer’s draftniks break down his fit in L.A., discuss what might happen if the Lakers pass on him, and agree on his perfect situation (hint: It isn’t in La La Land).Kevin O’Connor: Lonzo Ball is no.

Lonzo Ball and Josh Jackson are not hiding their pros and cons, and Donovan Mitchell and Dennis Smith Jr. look like franchise-changing steals. The biggest stories from the most well-attended NBA summer league ever.

There may not have been any fireworks, but we learned a lot about the rising Wizards, who are inching their way to possible home-court advantage in the playoffsLong after the Wizards’ 123–108 victory over the Celtics on Tuesday is forgotten, their decision to dress in all black before an otherw

Good news, Hoopheads. Finch is in the House. Not just any house, mind you. He is in Seth’s Draft House on Medium. Over the next two weeks, this site will serve as a hub for first-rate content designed to prepare you for the 2017 NBA Draft.

Be thankful that the NBA is keeping us busy with on-court action and locker-room drama, because the rumor mill has hardly been in motion. Conversations with a wide range of league executives and agents reveal a strong consensus: The trade market is expected to be quiet.

The All-Star has a deal to stay north of the border for three more years, but all across the league, teams are changing the way they use primary playmakers — and that impacts what a guy like Lowry gets paidAlmost everything that happened in June — from the Sixers trading up for Markelle

Pivotal offseasons sneak up on exciting young teams -- especially with the salary cap expected to flatten after an unprecedented two-year bubble that warped the league. The young pup Wolves were about to become expensive.

LAS VEGAS -- Jason Kidd has heard the comparisons of Lonzo Ball to himself many times since Ball began to shine at UCLA last season. Some even think that Ball looks a bit like Kidd when he came out as a highly acclaimed pass-first point guard and the No. 2 overall pick out of Cal in the 1994 draft.

The NBA is teeming with talent from the backcourt to the frontcourt, but even as space and versatility have changed the way we evaluate player roles, there still is no position that captures the fan imagination quite like the point guard.

​What follows are 21 notes and anecdotes from a day shadowing De'Aaron Fox last month. Why 21? Let's call it an homage to The Big Fundamental, The Big Ticket, and three-point shooting. 1. De'Aaron Fox had my attention as soon as I found out that Kevin Garnett was his favorite player growing up.

Minnesota’s point guard often finds himself part of trade rumors, but ever since he survived the most recent deadline, he’s helped orchestrate an unlikely late-season surge for the TimberwolvesThe Minnesota Timberwolves have won seven of their last 11 games, throwing their hat into the ring for

Dec 5, 2014; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Former players and members of the 76ers family during a halftime ceremony celebrating the USPS release of the commemorative Wilt Chamberlain stamp during a game against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Wells Fargo Center.

The NBA is becoming a positionless league. Coaches are more comfortable playing nontraditional lineups, cross-switching defensive assignments, and sliding players between positions. However, there are still five spots in a lineup, and what spot a player occupies still matters.

Welcome to Inefficiency Week. Over the next five days, we’re going to take a look at what we lose when we get lost in the chase for efficiency. We’ll explore the ways it’s changing the games we love to watch. We’ll remember its failures across the pop culture spectrum.

The 2016-17 college basketball season will be the "Year of the Freshmen," featuring what could be the best class we've ever seen. Over the next two weeks we will get familiar with the best of the best, examining who they are and where each of the top 10 prospects in the 2016 ESPN 100 came from.

The three best players in the world — LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Kawhi Leonard — might be small forwards, but the NBA is a point guards’ league. Three of the four conference finalists feature an All-Star point guard.

While the top ones are competing for MVP, the men directly behind are still All-Stars. Even outside the top 10, household names reign supreme, and the position's depth forces some notable veterans to show up far earlier than you might expect. So it goes for the league's most glamorous spot.

Roughly a month and a half separates us from the start of the 2016–17 NBA season, which means we’re roughly a month and a half out from being eight months away from the 2017 NBA draft, the most important sports event of the year.

For the better part of three months, the majority of the 2017 NBA draft discussion has been about point guards: whether Washington's Markelle Fultz or UCLA's Lonzo Ball has bigger star potential, or whether Kentucky's De'Aaron Fox is actually better than Ball, or whether N.C.

This story appears in the Jan. 9, 2017 issue of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED. To subscribe, click here. On the worst nights, when the fadeaways are short and the pocket passes are late, Giannis Antetokounmpo skips the showers.

Charles Barkley is not a role model. He drove a Hyundai Sonata and killed a referee in a Sevillan opera in 1993. He was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player that year, wreaking havoc and turning the hardwood into a boxing ring.

“I’ve been out for so long,” Isaiah Thomas told reporters on Monday, ahead of his season and Cavaliers debut on Tuesday against the Trail Blazers, “it feels like I lost my powers.” There’s a lot riding on whether Thomas can regain his superhuman scoring ability with Cleveland.

No fair, they’re already trading/releasing/devaluing these guys! Yes, even as I was finally writing this 2017 NBA No-Defense Team item, I had to bob and weave through the great waves of activity that already have begun in the league’s movement period.